Our Delinquent Citizenry:

...In this case study of a democratic politician in action, Lundberg provides a generally balanced interpretation...

...Yet, to say that they present an adequate view of the American scene would be to confuse an image in a distorting mirror with reality...

...But many of the chapters fall far short of substantiating the "treason" indictment...

...But though his arguments suggest that, so far as participation in the democratic process is concerned, a great many Americans are AWOL, he does not prove his charge of treason...

...That this state of affairs exists, he says, is unfortunate, but the citizens are only getting their just deserts...

...Some readers, faced with a long procession of sweeping generalizations about the shortcomings of the citizenry, may find each new undocumented statement, each new hyperbole carrying less conviction than the one before...

...Such observations as these definitely have a shock value...

...As a brisk and timely jeremiad, as education by exhortation, Lundberg's book is clearly successful...

...In Lundberg's view, the American people are ruled by an oligarchy...

...Also worthy of notice is his sketch of the political career of Franklin D. Roosevelt...

...The author, maintaining that by and large the American people have betrayed democracy, attempts to prove his point by scrutinizing the common man's voting record, the nature of his participation in the judicial process, his views on taxes and spending, his willingness to defend his country in time of crisis, the extent to which he maintains and carries out democratic principles of justice, and the extent to which he willingly allows pressure groups and political machines to usurp the democratic freedom of the individual...

...He does a generally commendable job in his discussion of racial intolerance and its consequences...

...Lundberg is at his best in his systematic and objective survey of the roles of business and industry, organized labor, and agriculture as pressure groups...

...And one cannot deny that they are in part correct...

...Indeed, in a country where the average small business "is generally a complex of law violations," where the people want their representatives "to be parents to them," and where the electorate "has shown repeatedly it is in favor of doing away with elections," one should not be surprised to find that "where the general population has not looked upon freedom and its fruits with indifference, it has accepted it lightly, squandered it or grossly abused it...

...Every chapter is readable, interesting and provocative...

...political power is in the hands of leaders of organized interest groups and pressure groups...

...Reviewed by John D. Campbell Assistant Professor of Psychology, Haverford College IN The Treason of the People, a book that is sometimes sermon, sometimes social science, Ferdinand Lund-berg has set himself the task of critically examining "a neglected branch of our system of government??the citizenry??with a view to demonstrating how the major beneficiaries of the democratic idea fail to measure up to it, and how they are allowing to be established the preconditions to another kind of system (not necessarily a dictatorship, but possibly so) even as many persons and groups vociferously hail the triumph of democracy in our midst...

...Lundberg's courtroom oratory (especially in the early pages of his book) dazzles but often does not present a watertight case...